Buying Complex IT Systems : Computer System Procurement for Non-Technical Managers / Matthew Reynolds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reynolds, Matthew, 1969- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Management information systems.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Routledge, [2024]

Summary:

Many of us have had experiences of using IT systems at work that just don't work right or cause more problems than they solve. Even if we've been lucky at work and always had the opportunity to use well-built and functional IT systems, it's common to hear in the press or in our day-to-day lives about IT systems that are "down" or "slow", or just do not work right. While it can be inconvenient to have to use IT systems that aren't the best for businesses, buying an IT system that isn't fit for its intended purpose can have devastating effects on the business itself and the careers of the people involved. The senior team of any business will know everything there is to know about their specific business or market, but their job is not to implement IT systems. This brings an inherent unfairness to IT systems procurement because it makes it very easy to buy the wrong thing at the wrong price. In essence, the buyers are amateurs but the sellers are professionals. This mismatch is at the root of the majority IT systems failures - a problem which might cost a company millions of dollars and negatively impact work. This book is intended to be a practical manual for senior leaders in small-to-medium businesses that will teach them how to buy IT systems effectively - i.e. to somewhat transform the non-IT senior leadership personnel such that they are more informed and capable buyers. There are a million-and-one potholes that can trip up a business, even when buying from an otherwise effective and reputable seller, and this book looks to make it far more likely that the reader will buy the right system, at the right price. The author uses his extensive experience to highlight problem areas and offer solutions to eliminate them.

Contents:

Intro

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Introduction

Zeroes and Ones

Building Castles in the Sky with Your Mind

A Quick Word about ""Advice

Author Biography

Chapter 1. Going Shopping

Pain Points and Buying Decisions

Finding Your Pain Point

What's So Special about You?""

The Seeds of Strategy

Conceptualising Strategy

What's in Your Basket?

The Cloud

Summary

Chapter 2. Functional Specifications

What Can Go Wrong with an IT Project?

How Does a Functional Specification Make a Project Go More Smoothly?

MUST"" and ""COULD

Preferring Exceptional Cases

Aiming for Completeness

Formal Scoping and Pre-design

What a Scoping Exercise Does

Chapter 3. The Shape of the Solution

The Basics of IT Project Pricing

Determining Price

Commoditisation vs Specialisation

Special Note about the Word ""Estimate

Calculating the ""TCO"" Price

Chapter 4. Finding a Supplier

Understanding the Sales Cycle

A Quick Word on ""BANT

Making a Long List of Suppliers

No Magic Quadrant? What about Non-leaders?

Next ... The Suppliers

Initial Discussions

Project Management Methodologies

A Quick Word about Tenders/Requests for Proposals

Proposals and Back to Scoping

Chapter 5. Commissioning

The Contract

What Are Disputes For?

Jurisdiction

Resources

Insurance

Discovery

Intellectual Property

Escrow and Failure

What to Sign Off

Chapter 6. Project Management

How to Supervise the Project

Structuring the Work to be Done

Agile Methodologies Compared

Project Management Qualifications

User Stories

Keeping Artefacts

Chapter 7. Resourcing

External Resourcing

A Quick Word about Hiring Staff from the Supplier

Internal Resourcing

Day-to-Day Resourcing

Oversight Resourcing

Board Resourcing

Communication

Dealing with ""Blips"" in Availability

Managing Geographically Dispersed Teams

Fractional Support and IT Leadership

Chapter 8. Special Considerations for Bespoke Software

Why Use Bespoke Software?

A Worked Example: ""Revenue Operations (RevOps)

Your ""Secret Sauce

Data

Outsourced Development

Chapter 9. Dealing with Variations

What Are ""Variations""?

Variations as Opportunity

Variations as Risk

Specifics of Managing Variations

""Change Management

Change Request Forms

Change Impact Assessment

Change Approval

Change Log, Change Request Tracker, and Change Control Plan

Post-implementation Review

Internal Communications (and ""PR"")

Chapter 10. Testing

Where Testing Fits

Test Environments

Who Does the Testing?

How to Test Well

Signing Off Testing

Chapter 11. Dealing with Failure

Ten Reasons Why IT Projects Fail

Detecting Failure

Understanding What Happened

Communicating Failure

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781003427766

1003427766

9781003823285

1003823289

9781003823308

1003823300

OCLC:

1414456570